thought for the day, every day - Page 1

This emailed to me from a friend. I don't know the author......
A thought to remember, Marx said, "Remove one freedom per generation and soon you will have no freedom and no one would have noticed."
 
 
There was a chemistry professor in a large college that had some exchange students in the class.
 
One day while the class was in the lab, the professor noticed one young man, an exchange student, who kept rubbing his back and stretching as if his back hurt.  The professor asked the young man what was the matter.
 
The student told him he had a bullet lodged in his back.  He had been shot while fighting  communists in his native country who were trying to overthrow his country's government and install a new communist regime.  In the midst of his story, he looked at the professor and asked a strange question.
 
He asked: "Do you  know how to catch wild pigs?"
 
The professor thought it was a joke and asked for the punch line.  The young man said that it was no joke.  "You catch wild pigs by finding a suitable place in the woods, and you put corn on the ground.  The pigs find it and begin to come every day to eat the free food.
 
"When they are used to coming every day, you put a fence down one side of the place where they are used to coming.  When they get used to the fence, they begin to eat the corn again and you put up another side of the fence.
 
"They get used to that and start to eat again. You continue until you have all four sides of the fence up with a gate in the last side.
 
"The pigs, which are used to the free corn, start to come through the gate to eat that free corn again.  You then slam the gate on them and catch the whole herd.
 
Suddenly the wild pigs have lost their freedom.  They run around and around inside the fence, but they are caught.  Soon they go back to eating the free corn.  They are so used to it that they have forgotten how to forage in the woods for  themselves, so they accept their captivity."
 
The young man then told the professor that is exactly what he sees happening in America. The government keeps pushing us toward Communism/Socialism and keeps spreading the free corn out in the form of programs such as supplemental income, tax credit for unearned income, tax exemptions, tobacco subsidies, dairy subsidies, payments not to plant crops, welfare entitlements, medicine, drugs, etc., while we continually lose our freedoms, just a  little at a time.
 
One should always remember two truths: There is no such thing as a free lunch, and you can never hire someone to provide a service for you cheaper than you can do it yourself.
 
If you see that all of this wonderful government "help" is a problem confronting the future of democracy in America, you might want to share this with your  friends.
 
If you think the free ride is essential to your way of life, then you will probably not share this.
 
God help us all when the gate slams shut!
 
Quote for today: "The problems we face today are here because the people who work for a living are now outnumbered by those that vote for a living"
 

Oh dear.

That has a lot of truth to it.

The young man then told the professor that is exactly what he sees happening in America. The government keeps pushing us toward Communism/Socialism and keeps spreading the free corn out in the form of programs such as supplemental income, tax credit for unearned income, tax exemptions, tobacco subsidies, dairy subsidies, payments not to plant crops, welfare entitlements, medicine, drugs, etc., while we continually lose our freedoms, just a  little at a time.
 
Dependence on gov causes surrender of autonomy.

Oh puleeze!!!!!  If you all believe that poverty in America is because people have lost the will to work for their living and are just lazy, you haven't a clue........

I always say we middle class are one catastrophe away from poverty, job loss, major illness or injury, etc.  If you really believe it is as above article said, how about pulling a Morgan Spurlock and live in poverty for 6 months, you have $50 in your wallet, go find housing, food, find a job and then live on what you make, no cheating.  We will talk in 6 months......

Where does that article state that the middle class are lazy?
Mindhunt, I was hospitalized two years ago for three days on life support. I can't afford insurance because of preexisting injuries ( haven't had any health insurance since 1986). I paid all my hospital bills and subsequent doctors' bills out of my pocket....I didn't ask the government for a dime...I used up every penny of savings and then made payments til I paid in full. You don't need to preach to me about poverty, but I'll be damned if I'm going to ask the government to pay my debts. Same thing happened in 2000 when I broke my ankle so badly I had to have surgery to repair it with a steel plate and screws...I refused to let them admit me in the hospital, I couldn't afford the luxury. So I had the surgery to repair my smashed ankle done as an Out Patient. I made payments for a year to pay the dozens of bills to every section of the hospital, including the ER, which I had a friend drive me in after I splinted and stablized my ankle myself...I couldn't afford to use ambulance services.
So I don't believe in socialism, the dole or government controlling the price of things like corn by paying farmer more NOT to grow it than they can sell it for humans to eat ( as opposed to burn in their gas tank)

Joanro - Many against government assistance feel the poor are lazy and don't want to work, not the middle class is lazy.  So sorry about your health issues, that is terrible to go through.  So glad you are doing better.

I am guessing you had some kind of job or savings that you were able to make your payments with.  Many I work with are homeless or sleeping on the couch of someone's house.  Many of my clients WANT a job but being homeless or without a permanent address, they can't fill out the part of the employment applications that call for residence, so how to get a job to afford a residence when the application requires a residential address that they don't have?  Anyone who believes you can get rich off TANF or SNAP (temporary assistance and food stamps) hasn't tried to live on them.  Are there some that take advantage, yes, but the majority need it until they can get back on their feet.  It does not cause them to be lazy and forget how to work and earn a wage.  Also back when minimum wage was designed to be a living wage for a family of 4, the ENTIRE country prospered, now that you can't feed one person let alone a family, we are spiraling down into worse and worse economy.  Trickle down does not work, Reagan was told that when he proposed it but he and his congress did it against the advice of experts. 

Thank you, mind hunt, I'm OK. I have been self employed most of my adult life, or else working as an independent contractor. When i broke my ankle, I went back to riding my horses in my acts sooner than the doc thought would be possible. ( by the way, i refused any pain med they tried to inject into the iv, i tore up the rx for pain meds, all i took was alieve) After surgery, a cast was applied, supposed to remain for six weeks, then a walking boot...well at the three week mark, the doc was shocked to see the exrays reveiled my ankle was healed, he never saw anyone heal so fast, so he took the cast off. I got his permission get back on the road and ride my horses to fulfill bookings I had at six weeks, the time when the cast was supposed to come off, I was back to work. Yes, life's a struggle, I find we make our own luck. I was homeless when I got out of the army, never got paid enough to save any money, and no place t live, I was living in my car. I was hired at the hospital to work in new born nursery, but I didn't have the money to buy uniforms, but I got a job cleaning horse stalls. I made it back to fl when I got out by getting a job at the race track grooming horses, made enough money to buy a car and gas money. There is always work when some one Wants to work. After i got to fl I hired on doing odd jobs like taking down barbed wire fence for four dollars an hour, then digging, by hand with post hole diggers, post holes for the new fence. There's always work when a person wants to work. Hard as things were and still are, I've never, ever applied for fooid stamps or even the GI bill. If the gov gives me money, they get to tell me what I can or can't do...its like when I enlisted, when we were sworn in we were told we were now government property, we had no rights to our selves anymore...that! is a real wake up call.
As for minimum wage, every time its raised by the gov, the cost of everything goes up to cover the increase businesses have to pay in wages. Its a vicious circle.